Is there some... consensus or Word of God as to why the Loroi crews use voice to communicate in battle? Is it faster than Sanzai? Does it work better over long distance? Are they combining both for ease/speed of communication?

Mon Mar 21, 2011 8:19 am

bunnyboy

Joined: Sat Mar 05, 2011 2:21 pmPosts: 485Location: Finland

Re: So, hm, speech?

Because most Loroi can't use telepathic transmissions between ship-to-ship range.

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Mon Mar 21, 2011 8:33 am

von Boomslang

Joined: Mon Mar 21, 2011 8:01 amPosts: 3

Re: So, hm, speech?

...well, durr, that makes sense. Just because some can doesn't mean these ones are used well on every one ship.

Speech is machine recordable where as Sanzai is not. Sanzai is also fairly range limited. IIRC an average Loroi cannot cover an entire ship with their own unamplified broadcast, messages relayed by Loroi in the vicinity. Inter-ship communications requires the use of radio which requires speech.

--Aygar

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Mon Mar 21, 2011 8:41 am

Mjolnir

Joined: Sat Mar 05, 2011 6:24 amPosts: 423

Re: So, hm, speech?

Aygar wrote:

Speech is machine recordable where as Sanzai is not. Sanzai is also fairly range limited. IIRC an average Loroi cannot cover an entire ship with their own unamplified broadcast, messages relayed by Loroi in the vicinity. Inter-ship communications requires the use of radio which requires speech.

Speech can also be sent to specific areas of the ship without having to take the care to telepathically send to a specific person. Using speech is more resilient in case of casualties or other changes in personnel, and you don't have everyone trying to broadcast loudly enough to be heard.

Good point Mjolnir. I figured that with all the emotional buzz of thoughts - pain, anxiety, yes and death going on... probably speech is more 'resilient' especially when trying to address those in your immediate area and range of hearing or even trying to address a very specific crew-person in command, helm, fire control stations who is outside telepathic transmission range.

I don't know how much the author has thought into it, but taking the universe at face value it would also be valuable to use speech for recording purposes. It would be common during salvage/repair operations to recover whatever recording devices a ship had for postmortem analysis.

Taking it a step further, in the case of military inquiries or battle analysis, speech would be far easier to draw conclusions on, rather than the implied communication that may or may not have occurred.

Mon Mar 28, 2011 11:44 am

Karst45

Joined: Sat Mar 05, 2011 9:03 amPosts: 785Location: Quebec, Canada

Re: So, hm, speech?

curt wrote:

I don't know how much the author has thought into it, but taking the universe at face value it would also be valuable to use speech for recording purposes. It would be common during salvage/repair operations to recover whatever recording devices a ship had for postmortem analysis.

I don't think that quite as useful as you may think. Most data picked up by sensor would suffice. It not like you have so see if it a pilot error that caused the crash. Your at was so it most likely weapon fire and those would be picked up by the sensor.

But i guess there must be some kind of captain log or record for the purpose of relaying information to other fleet in different sector (hence mozin courier ship)

Mon Mar 28, 2011 12:04 pm

bunnyboy

Joined: Sat Mar 05, 2011 2:21 pmPosts: 485Location: Finland

Re: So, hm, speech?

I think that electronical record is much niser way to save last words than send full sensory sanzai to unsuspecting telepath.Think of it. You are just brushing teeths on morning or doing something else nice and suddenly "AAARRRGGHH!" And in bad case you may lose your sanity.

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Mon Mar 28, 2011 12:24 pm

fredgiblet

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Joined: Mon Mar 21, 2011 9:02 amPosts: 980

Re: So, hm, speech?

curt wrote:

I don't know how much the author has thought into it, but taking the universe at face value it would also be valuable to use speech for recording purposes.

He knows.

Arioch wrote:

but since telepathic signals can't currently be recorded or retransmitted, spoken language is also used for radio communication and for making verbal records....As was also mentioned, in addition to the range limitation to normal telepathy, voice has the advantage that it can be recorded and archived. The Listel are used to record telepathic communications, but of course they are not computers, so a voice record is much easier to search, index and cross-reference than a Listel's memory. The voice interactions between the Loroi officers on different ships are terse, formal, and somewhat stylized, as you will see in the comic very shortly....Perhaps he's referring to such recorders on large ships, where you might want an audio record of what orders were given when, and such. Here the Listel on duty is the primary record, but this is obviously not sufficient, particularly if the ship is destroyed. Certain key types of orders will require a spoken component for the audio record... such things as weapons fire, change of duty, or other critical functions. These commands would either be spoken directly by the commander, or relayed in spoken words by one of the staff officers.

Tue Mar 29, 2011 12:30 am

RaZ

Joined: Mon Mar 07, 2011 6:03 pmPosts: 6

Re: So, hm, speech?

I was going to say, on the surface that seems inconsistent with page 40, but now that I think about it, it doesn't really.

Quote:

We rely on sanzai for most communication

Realistically, most communication would still be telepathic. Generally, we talk to the people around us more than we talk to people further away (barring those who spend most of their time online). It would make sense for most of that conversation on a ship to be through sanzai, and then for the record or for 'long-distance' conversations, to go through radio, or the equivalent technological device.

Another thing to consider would be that while the Loroi may be the namesake of the Loroi Alliance, as well as a majority of the fighting force, they are an Allied military. Hence they need to train to be able to coordinate with other Allied ships in combat.

Since you fight as you have been trained, it would make sense to practice vocal communication from early stages in training. That way you have a system everyone is familiar with using in the heat of battle, since you can't exactly expect any Allied ships (The Historians, Barsam or whomever) to respond to telepathically placed orders.

Wed Mar 30, 2011 6:35 pm

osmium

Joined: Tue Mar 22, 2011 2:53 pmPosts: 85

Re: So, hm, speech?

In an effort to cover topics that are no longer present in the new forums:

Another reason is sort of sociological, namely that telepathic communication with a hostile party (initially other Loroi) was dangerous as it involved connecting your minds which invited psychic attacks. Similar to how MANY human cultures have gestures that sort of "prove" one isn't going to fight (such as shaking with the non shaking hand on the elbow of the shaking hand to prove that you aren't going to gut them with a concealed knife, or covering one fist with another hand etc), Loroi default to speech in the opposite situations, namely when one doesn't trust the other. As a result much of the Loroi's language is militant in nature. One's spoken name is sort of like throwing down the gauntlet it is like their warrior's name. Speaking is rude as it implies a lack of trust if not outright hostility. It's not surprising that it became associated with military things.

Another interesting point is that the Loroi have maintained their own dialect of "trade" the linqua franca of Outsiders. It isn't exactly like esperanto, but it is a language designed to be used for interspecies communication. I don't remember off the top of my head if the Loroi knew trade before it was "reinstituted" as the language of diplomacy after the Soia collapse or exactly what the timeline was, but as far as I know trade is the only native Loroi language (despite current loroi civilization coexisting on 3? separate planets before they (re?)attained space travel). I'm a little rusty on the deal with Trade but I seem to recall it was designed to be simple and hence is very "regular" unlike most natural languages wherein the words that are used the most diverge from those that aren't resulting in the most oftenly used words shifting and becoming irregular in some way. I can't answer the obvious question of what's different about Loroi trade from normal trade because I don't recall if it's been touched on, but I'd say it's a good bet because it was the language of the Loroi that militaristic, combat, hostility, etc have slightly different forms from standard trade. Although clearly from the early interaction between Beryl and Alex there are much more extensive changes as Alex implied that it was hard to connect their speech with trade as he knows it.

-O

Fri Apr 01, 2011 6:46 pm

fredgiblet

Moderator

Joined: Mon Mar 21, 2011 9:02 amPosts: 980

Re: So, hm, speech?

I believe that the last time it came up I made the analogy of a Chinese person taught English by a Brit trying to talk to someone in the Deep South.

Sat Apr 02, 2011 12:41 am

captainsmirk

Joined: Mon Mar 07, 2011 2:07 pmPosts: 35

Re: So, hm, speech?

The difference would seem to mostly be minor differences in vocabulary, based on the small number of terms Alex has not understood when talking to the Loroi (speaking Loroi dialect as opposed to the Orgus dialect that he would have been taught).

Nick

Sat Apr 02, 2011 5:46 am

bunnyboy

Joined: Sat Mar 05, 2011 2:21 pmPosts: 485Location: Finland

Re: So, hm, speech?

captainsmirk wrote:

The difference would seem to mostly be minor differences in vocabulary, based on the small number of terms Alex has not understood when talking to the Loroi (speaking Loroi dialect as opposed to the Orgus dialect that he would have been taught).

Or Beryl is master of many dialects and she was already heard the enough of the record to decide which one is nearest.

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Sat Apr 02, 2011 9:38 am

captainsmirk

Joined: Mon Mar 07, 2011 2:07 pmPosts: 35

Re: So, hm, speech?

Given that it is supposed to be a universal language of communication I doubt there are going to be massive differences between dialects. I fact it would actually seem counterproductive to have differing dialects at all but I'm assuming those are a result of the hundreds of thousands of years dividing the modern era from the original Soia development of the language.

Nick

Sat Apr 02, 2011 1:49 pm

bunnyboy

Joined: Sat Mar 05, 2011 2:21 pmPosts: 485Location: Finland

Re: So, hm, speech?

Problems of universal langeage are.

Not everyone is capaple of to use same pronunciation. And with alienspecies it is more serious then "chineses can't say R"

The meanings of words may be different, especially abstract things, like feelings and colors.

You speak usually only with beings on couple of neighbourg systems, not those living other side of galaxy.

Languages are dynamic, so meanings, words and pronunciation will change over time.Like Finnish word VIHAINEN which means angry, but in different old dialects also plenty, hard, fast, hungry, sick, hurting, bitter, magical and poisonous. Original meaning was probably green. And this is from area size of New Mexico.

LOLS! I LOVE Goblins! Minmax has really turned into a ...lovable hero!

I just hope the art does not change with Thunt passing the flame... I really don't want to see 'Order of the Stick' art style on my goblins comic... i'll drop it if it does - and reminisce about the "Good Ole' days...' {Sigh!}

Oh... yeah and how many different dialects the the Iroquois Native American tribes have for the same language... mostly?

LOLS! I LOVE Goblins! Minmax has really turned into a ...lovable hero!

I just hope the art does not change with Thunt passing the flame... I really don't want to see 'Order of the Stick' art style on my goblins comic... i'll drop it if it does - and reminisce about the "Good Ole' days...' {Sigh!}

you do realize that his announce of him leaving the comic coincide with the 1st April aka April fool?

Sun Apr 03, 2011 2:10 pm

osmium

Joined: Tue Mar 22, 2011 2:53 pmPosts: 85

Re: So, hm, speech?

@ Nick/captainsmirk

While that could certainly be a cause for some confusion(vastly different pronunciations and slang) I was actually thinking more along the lines of mexican-spanish vs spain-spanish where mexican-spanish has removed an entire verb conjugation form i.e. 2nd person plural (vosotros). (yes in the south they use y'all but that's a one-off and not really a potential verb conjugation that could be applied to all verbs) Not only do they pronounce things differently, the dialects have diverged so much that there isn't a one to one translation. Also there can be more systemic dialectual differences than just the occasional reassignment of a word meaning, such as "fixin" meaning "intending to" such as "I'm fixin' to go to the store", sometimes dialects remove or add words that don't really translate back to the original dialect well and not just because it's taken on a whole new meaning or that the word is user dependent in meaning (not going to mention one so as to not stir up a debate, but if you're american you'll think of one quickly).